


Quiet Time

by fractalgeometry



Series: Catch Me [2]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Napping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22449787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalgeometry/pseuds/fractalgeometry
Summary: What were Amy and Gina doing while Jake slept in the breakroom? And did the squad really trade out who was in there with him for later naps? (Spoiler: they did.)
Relationships: Gina Linetti & Amy Santiago, Gina Linetti & Jake Peralta, Jake Peralta & Amy Santiago, Rosa Diaz & Jake Peralta
Series: Catch Me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615450
Comments: 13
Kudos: 174





	Quiet Time

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this practically since I started writing the first nap scene in I'm Not Falling (Please Catch Me Anyway). I wanted to explore the team's way of quietly supporting Jake even when he doesn't think he needs it. And I definitely thought that Holt must have walked in that first time and been chagrined. So here you go!

Amy looks up as Jake walks past their desk and into the breakroom. Through the door she can see him flop on the sofa and pull out his phone. She starts to follow him, but Gina catches her eye and mouths _wait_ before slipping into the other room herself. 

Amy watches Gina start to make coffee and Jake glumly stare at his phone for a few more minutes before making her move. She scoops up some paperwork and joins the two of them, sitting down at the currently unoccupied table. 

“Hey, Jake,” she says. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good,” he says. “I mean, I just caught a guy I’ve been chasing. That’s always nice.”

“Definitely.” She smiles at him and turns to her work. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Gina still puttering with something near the coffee maker, and Jake…

Jake looks exhausted. He’s looking at his phone, but his eyes are foggy and if he’s actually seeing what’s on it she’ll eat her hat. She’s not sure when she last wore a hat — maybe last winter? — but to heck with it, it’s a saying. 

As she watches, Jake sighs and slides his phone into his pocket, dropping his head onto the back of the sofa and closing his eyes. Amy carefully doesn’t change what she’s doing, continuing to studiously fill in the boxes on the form in front of her. She focuses so hard that when Gina slides into the chair across from her Amy jumps, almost banging her knee on the table. 

Gina glares at her and whispers, “I think he’s asleep.”

Amy looks at their friend. His head is still on the back of the sofa, and his shoulders seem a little more relaxed than they have in weeks. She nods in agreement of Gina’s assessment, not wanting to make a noise and wake him up.

Gina stands back up and closes the door as quietly as she can. Then they sit as Jake sleeps, neither one talking, just the quiet sounds of Amy’s pen scratching and Gina’s fingers tapping her phone. The noise from the bullpen is muted by the door, and the room is surprisingly peaceful. 

Jake slowly slides down the sofa until his legs are falling off, and after a bit, his head drops to the arm. Amy wonders if he’ll wake up then, but he just grumbles a bit and quiets again. 

About two hours later, the door opens and Captain Holt appears. 

“I have noted-” he begins.

Amy and Gina turn identical looks of murder upon him. 

“Shh!” Gina snaps. 

Jake groans and shifts on the sofa. All three of the others watch him, hardly breathing until he, thankfully, settles again. They stay frozen for several more seconds, but he doesn’t move again or say anything. 

Holt backs out of the door. “I apologize for the intrusion,” he whispers. “Stay as long as is necessary.”

He closes the door so gently that it hardly clicks when the latch catches. 

~

“What’s going on?” 

Jake’s voice breaks the silence a few hours later. Amy looks over at him. He hasn’t moved, instead just blinking at them, looking confused and sleepy and a little worried. 

“I am working,” she says, even though that’s pretty obvious.

“And I,” says Gina, whose phone is still just inches from her face, “am discovering the best new app game of the hour.”

“You were sleeping,” Amy tells him. She’s pretty sure he would have figured that one out on his own, but a little external backup to one’s senses never hurt. 

He continues to blink at them, looking more confused and less sleepy by the second. “You let me sleep? At _work?_ ” he says finally.

“It’s not like you’re doing it at home,” Amy shoots back, and instantly regrets it. Sure, she and most of the others are pretty sure it’s true, but they have no proof, and Jake has been jumpy enough that saying it aloud could make him run for the hills and undo all of the progress they made this afternoon. 

Jake looks taken aback. He gasps for a few seconds, opening and closing his mouth before saying, “I mean, well, yeah, but, well,” then he stops and sighs. “Thanks.”

Then he’s gone, practically leaping off the sofa and trotting out of the room. Amy’s chest feels tight and she almost doesn’t want to see where he goes — to the evidence lockup? Out of the precinct entirely? — but as she watches, he stops in the bullpen itself and sits down, only a little bit hesitantly, at his desk. 

Amy lets out a small sigh and turns to look at Gina, who is grinning. 

“We did good,” she says.

Amy looks back out to where Jake is sitting and stabbing at his keyboard in a familiar gesture of exasperation and nods.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “I think we did.”

They sit there for another minute or two before Amy gathers her papers and heads back out to her own desk. Jake doesn’t directly acknowledge her when she sits down, but he doesn’t seem to be ignoring her either. It calms the edge of unease that’s still in the back of her throat.

Gina saunters out to her desk a few minutes later. She catches Amy’s eye and smiles a little.

~

Amy is in the breakroom a few days later when Jake comes in. He doesn’t strike up a conversation beyond an offhand “Hi, Amy,” but flops on the sofa and watches her move around the room. 

She doesn’t have any work with her this time, but after weighing the situation she sits down at the table anyway. Jake keeps glancing at her and then away again, but he doesn’t say anything more. Finally he sighs, sounding exasperated, and squirms until he’s lying curled up on the sofa. He doesn’t look at her anymore, instead staring grimly at the floor by the vending machine. 

Less than five minutes later, he’s asleep.

Amy stays where she is for another fifteen minutes before gingerly sliding her chair back and tiptoeing to the door. Rosa looks up and twitches an eyebrow at her, and Amy makes a face that she hopes conveys _Jake is sleeping again and I don’t want to leave him alone_. It must work, because Rosa looks around her desk, scoops up some papers, and joins Amy in the doorway. When she sees Jake her face softens a fraction and she jerks her head back in the direction of their desks.

“Go ahead,” she whispers. “I’ll stay.”

Amy smiles. “Thanks,” she whispers.

~

When the door opens again almost three hours later, it’s Rosa who comes out and heads back to her desk.

“He’s good,” she murmurs in response to Amy’s questioning look. 

So Amy waits, and a few minutes later Jake emerges from the breakroom and slips back to his seat across from her. She’s not sure if she should say anything, but he solves that by speaking first.

“Hey.”

Amy looks up.

He runs a hand through his hair, some of which is sticking at odd angles. “Thanks. For not being weird about it.”

“Of course! Thanks for…” she trails off. Thanks for what? Going to sleep on the couch at their workplace while she sat awkwardly in the same room? That didn’t have a good ring to it. “...yeah,” she finishes lamely.

He quirks his eyebrows at her word choice, and before she can think about it she’s laughing, and even he’s laughing a little, and she knows that they’ve made a breakthrough.


End file.
